O how great our joy is

Hello! so this week was just wonderful haha. So, as all you Americans know, it was Thanksgiving weekend, and because Germans are so interested in America, they knew too. We were invited to 4 different Thanksgiving dinners this week! haha Thursday by the Penrods, Friday by the Baumanns, Saturday by the Reimers and Sunday by the Francks. haha  In normal Missionary life, 2 of them fell out but! two went through and we had a wonderful time haha. So, for those of you just checking in, I'm serving in Hanau right now which is just about the coolest city in all of Hessen. It is the birth place of the Bruders Grimm and they are very proud of the fact.  This week on my Split with Elder Hamilton, I bought the Grimms' Complete Works. 

Let me tell you, I am super honored to read all the Grimm stories in the original language. Fun Fact, Jakob Grimm actually did a lot to reform, and standardize a lot of different grammar for the German Language. 

We went by on Chad Bergner this week but he wasn't home, and I'm fighting with a new app the mission is using to keep track of numbers. It doesn't recognize that I'm in Hanau and no longer in Köln. The Germans are the same here, not trusting of the religious people who keep approaching them on the street and asking about their relationship to God, but we get a few that will let us in and listen to a small Spiel.

There was this one lady in a dorf we doored, so we took a day to go to the dorf named Wolf.  In Wolf we doored into a Catholic lady (the only one in this protestant Dorf [village]) anyways we had a really good conversation, but then when I tried to commit her to reading the Book of Mormon she said something to the effect of "I dont really have that much time, it would just sit around, keep it for someone who has more use for it..." blah blah blah, the normal spiel. and I'm getting tired of this excuse. Germans are always saying junk like "I wish you lots of success, but not with me." "Wow! What you're doing is amazing, keep it up, but over there." "You've got it right! but I'm already christian, go teach those muslims over there" and it finally came to a head so I look this lady in the eyes and say "Did John not tell us to prove everything and keep was is true? What if this is the truth, you don't want to give it up. Try it!" she said "but I have my religion and I'm at peace with that" and each word decended upon my ears like anvils upon an egg. My immediate desire was to stand up and scream at this lady. To literally reach across the table and shake her with all of my might and scream "ARE YOU SERIOUS!?!?!?!?! 

The truth, literally the answer to every question ever placed, could be staring you right in the face! delivered nearly on a silver platter right to your cozy home out in the middle of nowhere and you are gonna say to my face "I already have a religion!?!?" ugh! I'm not selling snake oil, I'm not trying to get you to buy anything, literally your reading this book does nothing for me. If anything, it does in fact leave me without a book to give to someone else. but it rewards me Nothing. So think for a moment. Why would I PAY to spend TWO years in a FOREIGN land, forgo my studies, leave my friends and family, my customs and culture, trudge through the cold, learn the language, drive an hour out to the middle of nowhere and knock through 30 rude people to come to your door, to bare you my broken, bruised bleeding heart in an attempt to show you how dear this little book is, how special and comforting the message is, the Love that we can feel from it..........

Just to hear you say "I already have a religion"

This isnt a religion! It IS THE religion. It is the only Gospel spoken of and lead by GOD HIMSELF he speaks to prophets so that we know we are not alone. He gives us power to heal the sick, to bless the afflicted and to SEAL FAMILIES TOGETHER FOREVER! and you will forgo all of that to keep from changing a check mark on your Anmeldung (papers for the city, they make you register with your church in Germany) 

Of course, I did and said none of those things. I smiled weakly and accepted her agency. I had wrestled to communicate my feelings for her and for this message and she had chosen that it wasn't something she was interested in, as life changing, comforting and selfless as it was. I took the book back and gingerly returned it to the worn place in my bag. We said another prayer before we left, and with disappointment shut the door behind us. 

Hopefully that wasn't all too sour, but those are often the experiences that happen. more than not, that is a summary of my interactions with people and these are why it is so tender and sweet when someone DOES recognize the immense worth this message has. They recognize that there are around 80,000 young men and women all over the world, making the same sacrifice as I, to carry this message through a no mans land of confusion and doubt to their doorstep. They also recognize that countless other saints, give countless hours in service to this church, from the mothers in Primary, to the ministry, to the leaders. No one is paid for their efforts in any sort of currency. They recognize that we do it out of love. We do it out of a sense of love and for that we are rewarded. Our treasures are heaped up in heaven as we trudge through and keep at it. That'ss why, we cry at baptisms, thats why we keep going, to find that one and O how great our joy is, when we are able to see that one again in the Celestial Kingdom. Just that one. That's all we're looking for. 

haha, Aside from all that I am having a blast out here. Its really a blessing to be serving with the missionaries here in Hanau, Sister Baker is a crack up and is always making me laugh haha. 

Um, I ran out of things to say haha I'll be setting up some Christmas letters for the family this week and sending them off. Next week I'm going in to look at Lederhosen, so that will be cool.. I love you all so much and I pray for you every day. 

hugs and kisses Elder Fisher.

Elder Fisher's Testimony in German

Where was God?

This week we went to visit a Thai lady and her husband. So we went up, she was happy to see us and let us into her tiny apartment with her 3 large dogs haha They jumped all over, but so we get started and her husband comes out and squats by the couch. "So where is your God?" He asked, and then he started to ream us. He laid in hard and kept asking where God was.

"Where was God when my brother shot himself?"

"Where was God when my daughter was born so physically handicapped she can hardly breath?"

"Where was He then, where is He now, all sorts of stuff. Terribly awful things have happened to this man and he wanted to know "Where God was" he was bitter, and hated God. Several times he said "Wenn ich die Gelegenheit hatte, Deine Gott zu toten, ich werde! Sofort!"

(Translation) "If I had the chance to kill your God, I would. Without thinking."

With tears in his eyes he left the room... I sat in silent pain for this man... for the damage that he had taken and the distance it had driven between him and His Heavenly Father... we spoke a little more to his wife. After a few moments he came back out and stood in the doorway. He stayed silent as Elder Butler introduced the Book of Mormon. Then he sat on his haunches by the couch again. He asked us what we believed God was. We explained Gods loving nature, the fact that He is our Heavenly Father and that He loves us. 

You see in Germany, religion has this weird grip. You must you must. Tithing is literally a Tax you pay, when you come here you register with your denomination and then every pay check the state takes "Kirchen Steuer" or church tax directly out of your pay check and pays your church.

This was a completely new idea to this man... he had never understood God as a loving figure. He had always seen God as something to be feared. We spoke more about the gospel and he asked how he would become Mormon if he decided to do it. We explained Baptism and the Gift of the Holy Ghost. And he said "Ich bin euch niedrig." or I'm jealous of you. We said, you don't have to be, learn it for yourself. He asked for a Book of Mormon and we gladly obliged. We will be seeing him today or this week to explain the Plan of Salvation. But that was by far the most powerful experience of my mission. To see a man lose it, leave to cry and then come back, nearly on his knees and ask us about God... 

It was humbling actually. so that was by far the most influencing experience thus far, I vowed that night that I was going to do everything I could to give Chad (this man) and any other German, the best opportunity possible to accept the gospel, because it is really enabling, and comforting. everyone deserves to know that their God loves them. that hes not something to be appeased or feared. 

Also this week, Itried Leberknödel. or being translated Liver balls haha It was okay, but smelled like the pigs I cut open in biology in Mrs. Hawkins' class. haha Needless to say it was a fun experience, but not one I will be fond of repeating any time soon. 

A weird apartment update, our sink doesn't drain. It never has. It was a problem that existed before I got there. The solution of the very clever Elders before me was to take the pipe out from under the sink and just put a bucket under there that one can regularly drain into the toilet... making doing the dishes a 3 or 4 bathroom trip experience haha but this last week I overflowed it twice and had to mop up my mess :P wet food pieces and junk haha. We lent our iron to a lady in a wheelchair who lives above us. She used to be an investigator but lost interest so we are friends with her. she had it for an hour... it took us a little to realize she had to wait for it to cool so she could put it in her lap and wheel it back to us. humbling moment. 

So this area is amazing ahaha I love it so much. My running list of companions looks like this:

Elder Andrewsen MTC

Elder Robinett Cologne

Elder Van Dam Cologne

Elder Leimer Cologne

Elder Butler Hanau

haha a lot of time there in Cologne. 

Um... I dont know what else to share, mission life, real life, foods, haha Elder Butler is amazing, we have so much fun with everything. He loves contacting so my view of the hours we spend doing that has changed, also he and I have a lot in common so we have a lot to talk about, so the time is nice.

I miss y'all a ton! I love you so much, and pray for you often!

Liebe Gruße Elder Fisher